Competition pieces for the acting performance class · Dogface: This is how it happens: One minute,...

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Competition pieces for the acting performance class

A reminder of the pieces to select from: a. aged 10 and under Choose one of the following monologues to be performed from memory with staging. Protecto Alice in Wonderland Gum Sculptures Posters b. ages 11-15 Choose one of the following monologues to be performed from memory with staging. Dogface by Kellie Powell The same old clothes by Adra Young Acting Class by M Ramirez The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov How to train your dragon adapted from the

book How Green is my Valley adapted from the

screen play

C. ages 16+ One monologue to be selected from each list. List A Confusions - A Talk in the park (Beryl) Alan

Ayckbourn Confustions – A Talk in the park (Ernest) Alan

Ayckbourn Love, Loss and What I wore by N Ephron Charge by Eric Kaiser Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller A Streetcar named desire by Tennessee

Williams Two by Jim Cartwright Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

adapted by Simon Stephens Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth List B Marriage by Nikoli Gogol (Agafya) An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde (Mabel) The Casket Comedy by Plautus (Alcesimarchus) Fear and misery in the third reich by Berthold Brecht (Jewish Wife) Hamlet by William Shakespeare (Hamlet) As you like it by William Shakespeare (Jacques) The Winters tale by Williams Shakespeare (Hermione) PLEASE SEE NEXT PAGES FOR THE PIECES TO LEARN. PLEASE NOTE THERE ARE 14 PAGES IN THIS DOCUMENT.

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Competition pieces for the poetry performance class

Alice in Wonderland

ALICE: [Angrily] Why, how impolite of him. I asked him a civil question, and he pretended not to hear me. That's not at all nice. [Calling after him] I say, Mr. White Rabbit, where are you going? Hmmm. He won't answer me. And I do so want to know what he is late for. I wonder if I might follow him. Why not? There's no rule that I mayn't go where I please. I--I will follow him. Wait for me, Mr. White Rabbit. I'm coming, too! [Falling] How curious. I never realized that rabbit holes were so dark . . . and so long . . . and so empty. I believe I have been falling for five minutes, and I still can't see the bottom! Hmph! After such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling downstairs. How brave they'll all think me at home. Why, I wouldn't say anything about it even if I fell off the top of the house! I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time. I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny that would be. Oh, I think I see the bottom. Yes, I'm sure I see the bottom. I shall hit the bottom, hit it very hard, and oh, how it will hurt!

Protecto

I've always dreamed of being a hero. I've tried everything to become super. I let a spider bite me... no spider powers; just lots of itching. I tried standing too close to the microwave oven hoping the radiation would change me. Nothing. And I got in trouble for making so many bags of popcorn. But I took it all to school and had a popcorn party. I was a hero that day. So I guess it kinda worked. I love being a hero. I love helping people. I love making them happy. And I hate bad guys. I hate creeps who hurt people.

There's this kid at school... he is always hurting everyone. I am sick of him hurting us. I just need those super powers. I need something that will make him stop.

(lost in thought) Maybe if I eat more of the school lunches. They look radioactive. If I get enough green hotdogs and brown ketchup in me... something is bound to happen. (nods in approval)

And I need a catch phrase like "gonna smoosh me a baddie"... and a cool costume... actually last time I was in the bathroom, I saw the perfect superhero name. Protecto! Instead of a telephone booth like superman, I could use a bathroom stall and those Protecto seat covers could be a cape... and make a toilet paper mask. Nothing scares bad guys more than bathroom stuff. (thinks then frowns) Or maybe it will really make them want to flush me. I better rethink this.

Gum Sculptures

A local news channel is interviewing young Alex as s/he talks to them about how s/he started making gum sculptures.

Alex: You know why I’m always chewing gum? Cause it helps me think.

I used to stick my gum on my bedroom wall, blue, lime green, pink, white and strawberry covers my entire wall. It’s a pretty cool collage of gum that I’ve made.

There are some guys that play with lego. There’s even some people that make art, even have their constructions in museums.

I started chewing gum pieces and got into building things. I was swinging my baseball bat at a piece of gum, trying to hit it forever. When I finally nailed it, it stuck to the bat. I don’t know why but I just let it sit

Age Band: A (10 years and under)

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there. I was chewing another piece of gum and tried to hit it with my bat but when I finally did, that piece stuck to the first piece.

Then I got to thinking, what if I started sticking pieces of gum to pieces of gum and actually make something, like a sculpture. I got my friend Donnie to help me, not with making the sculpture but just with helping me chew up all them pieces and I made my first creation…a gum bat all made out of gum!

Posters

In this monologue, Charlie had his/her poster torn apart by her brother and s/he complains to Mother.

CHARLIE: Muuuuuum! Muuuum! (beat) (to brother) MATTHEW, stop it! Stop—-(beat) Ma—MuM!!! Matthew keeps pulling my posters off my wall and he, he tore my favourite poster! I told him not to go in my room and he just ignored me. He's pulling all the posters off the wall..

He tore the one Dad bought me yesterday…(to brother) You’re so stupid! (to mother) He ripped the bottom part of it—it’s ruined! I won't be able to get another one. How would you like it if I go in your room and just wreck something that you like? You'd be the first to complain about it.

(beat)

My whole poster, I don’t even want it now. I don’t even want my poster, now. He’s so mean to me, Mum. Mum, are you going to tell him? Are you even listening to me at all? This is important, this poster.

(she hold up the torn poster to show her Mother)

Look, look at my poster. He destroyed the whole thing.

Age Band: A (10 years and under) continued

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Dogface by Kellie Powell

Dogface: This is how it happens: One minute, you're just another awkward second-grader. And then your mom takes you and your brother to her friend's house, out in the country. You get out of the car, and there's a big yellow dog wagging his tail at you. And your mom and your brother go to ring the doorbell, and you get down on your knees in front of this friendly dog, and you're petting him... And then, suddenly, the dog snaps his jaws. And your life as you know it... ends.

It happens so fast... You're not even sure what happened. It feels like a very sharp pinch, and then it's spreading, fast through your whole face. There's blood. There's a lot of blood. You yell for your mom, you run towards her.

The dog never barked, never growled. He followed after me, still friendly and playful. Blood pouring from the holes in my face... and he's looking at me, wagging his tail. My mother grabbed my jacket from the car, and told me to hold it tight against my face. I was crying. I was so panicked I felt like I was choking.

At the hospital, nurses were coming in, mopping up blood and asking questions and trying to establish how much of my face was still there, whether the nerve endings were alive. My face felt puffy and I was light-headed. The nurses were friendly, they wanted me to trust them. And I did. I believed them when they said that doctors would be able to fix me.

And then, I was lying on a table, squinting into a bright light above me. I can't feel the stitches, but if I look out of the corner of my right eye, I can see it, the silver needle, moving up and down. So I don't look. They keep talking to me. Half the time I don't know what they're saying, the other half of the time, they're telling me how brave I am, but that's only because they don't know how afraid I feel. You're not allowed to cry or they might mess up your stitches. You can't move at all. They keep saying, "It will all be over soon."

When they finally let me see myself, when they gave me a mirror, I had prepared myself for a Halloween mask, for a horror movie, for a nightmare. But the blood had been cleaned away. It was just neat rows of stitches. I was actually relieved.

But then I went back to school. And then the real trauma began.

[….MORE DRAMA PIECES IN THIS AGE CATEGORY ON THE NEXT PAGES…]

Age Band: B (11-15 years)

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The Same Old Clothes (Adra Young)

Teen Girl: After class today, my favorite teacher, Ms. Childs asked me to stay in my seat when the bell rang. I knew exactly what she wanted. I had missed a whole week of school. Now, I have never really been the type to skip class. Except for this one time when me an Amber didn’t want to take Mr. Landry’s chemistry test. (Quietly giggles and looks around to see if anyone heard. She then sighs and takes on a more serious tone.) Well anyway, Ms. Childs did what any concerned teacher would do, I guess. So, when she asked me, I went on and told her the truth. I told her that my mother could not afford to wash our clothes last week ‘cause she didn’t have any money left after paying all the bills. Do you actually think that I would come to school wearing the same old dirty clothes? (Tugs on collar or sleeve of shirt) I’m in high school. Would you do it? (Points to audience) Just ask yourself that question! After I explained myself, the teacher seemed to feel sorry for me. She didn’t even lecture me or anything! She didn’t even say that she was going to call my mother! She gave me a pass this time. (Looking relieved) Now don’t go thinking that I don’t like school or that I am dumb. ‘Cause I do and I am not! I just don’t like to come to school when my clothes are dirty. But it looks like I’ll be missing school from time to time.

Acting Class (M. Ramirez)

Angelique: I took an acting class and the teacher was this weird creepy guy who was going bald and who wore tight pants and didn’t pronounce my name right ONCE. ANGELIQUE. My name is ANGEL-EEK. Not “Angelica,” not “Angie”… Angelique. It’s French for “Like an Angel” or “Born from Angels” or “Touched by an Angel”… something. I dunno. It doesn’t matter. He didn’t get it right once. He made us do all these weird creepy breathing exercises and all I could think of the whole time is MY MOTHER IS NOT PAYING FOR YOU TO TEACH ME HOW TO BREATHE, WEIRD CREEPY BALD GUY WITH TIGHT PANTS… MY MOTHER IS PAYING YOU TO TEACH ME TO ACT. ’Cause that’s what I’m good at. Acting. Like I’m really good at swimming and I paint too and my sister and I made State Jazz Ensemble but what I’m REALLY good at? Is acting. “Breathe in”… “Hold”… “Breathe out”… “Feel your inner animal reaching through”… Inner animal? Are you kidding? I Google-d the guy when I got home, whatever, I know it’s weird, but I had to. I HAD to know what this guy’s done that makes him so special. Know what this guy’s done, this guy who’s supposedly gonna teach me how to act? Three episodes of Ghost Hunter Deluxe and a deodorant commercial. DEODORANT? Is this a joke? What’s this guy gonna teach me to do? NOT SWEAT?!

[….MORE DRAMA PIECES IN THIS AGE CATEGORY ON THE NEXT PAGES…]

Age Band: B (11-15 years) CONTINUED

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The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov)

Lopakhin: I bought it…I bought it! One moment…wait…if you would, ladies and gentlemen… My head’s going round and round, I can’t speak… (laughs). So now the cherry orchard is mine! Mine! (he gives a shout of laughter) Great God in heaven – the cherry orchard is mine! Tell me I’m drunk – I’m out of my mind – tell me it’s all an illusion…Don’t laugh at me! If my father and grandfather could rise from their graves and see it all happening –if they could see me, their Yermolay, their beaten, half-literate Yermolay, who ran barefoot in winter – if they could see this same Yermolay buying the estate…The most beautiful thing in the entire world! I have bought the estate where my father and grandfather were slaves, where they weren’t even allowed into the kitchens. I’m asleep – this is all just inside my head – a figment of the imagination. Hey, you in the band! Play away! I want to hear you! Everyone come and watch Yermolay Lopakhin set about the cherry orchard with his axe! Watch these trees come down! Weekend houses, we’ll build weekend houses, and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren will see a new life here…Music! Let’s hear the band play! Let’s have everything the way I want it. Here comes the new landlord, the owner of the cherry orchard!

How to Train your Dragon

This is Berk. It’s twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death. It’s located solidly on the Meridian of Misery. My village. In a word? Sturdy. And it’s been here for seven generations, but every single building is new. We have fishing, hunting, and a charming view of the sunsets. The only problems are the pests. You see, most places have mice or mosquitoes, we have…dragons. Most people would leave. But not us. We’re Vikings. We have stubbornness issues. My name’s Hiccup. Great name, I know. But, it’s not the worst. Parents believe a hideous name will frighten off gnomes and trolls. Like our charming Viking Demeanor wouldn’t do that. That’s Stoick the Vast, Chief of the tribe. They say that when he was a baby he popped a dragon’s head clean off of its shoulders. Do I believe it? Yes, I do. The meathead with attitude and interchangeable hands is Gobber. I’ve been his apprentice ever since I was little. Well, little-er. See? Old village, lots and lots of new houses. Oh and that’s Fishlegs, Snotlout. the twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut and…Astrid. Aw, their job is so much cooler. One day I’ll get out there. Because killing a dragon is everything around here. A Nadderhead is sure to get me at least noticed. Gronckles are tough. Taking down one of those would definitely get me a girlfriend. A Zippleback? Exotic. Two heads, twice the status. Then there’s the Monstrous Nightmare. Only the best Vikings go after those. They have this nasty habit of setting themselves on fire. But the ultimate prize is the one dragon no one’s ever seen. We call it the… Night Fury. This thing never steals food, never shows itself and…never misses. No one has ever killed a Night Fury. That’s why I’m going to be the first. This is Berk. It snows nine months out of the year, and hails the other three. What little food grows here is tough and tasteless. The people that grow here, even more so. The only upsides are the pets. While other places have ponies, or parrots; we have… dragons.

[….MORE DRAMA PIECES IN THIS AGE CATEGORY ON THE NEXT PAGE…]


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How Green Was my Valley.

Huw: I am packing my belongings in the shawl my mother used to wear when she went to the market. And I’m going from my valley. And this time, I shall never return. I am leaving behind me my fifty years of memory. Memory. Strange that the mind will forget so much of what only this moment has passed, and yet hold clear and bright the memory of what happened years ago – of men and women long since dead. Yet who shall say what is real and what is not? … There is no fence nor hedge around time that is gone. You can go back and have what you like of it, if you can remember. So I can close my eyes on my valley as it is today, and it is gone, and I see it as it was when I was a boy. Green it was, and possessed of the plenty of the Earth. In all Wales, there was none so beautiful. Everything I ever learned as a small boy came from my father and I never found anything he ever told me to be wrong or worthless. The simple lessons he taught me are as sharp and clear in my mind as if I had heard them only yesterday. In those days, the black slag, the waste of the coal pits, had only begun to cover the sides of our hill. Not yet enough to mar the countryside, nor blacken the beauty of our village, for the colliery had only begun to poke its skinny black fingers through the green.


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List A (one choice from each list) A Talk In The Park from CONFUSIONS by Alan Ayckbourn

Beryl: Thanks. Sorry, only the man over there won’t stop talking. I wanted to read this in peace. Icouldn’t concentrate. He just kept going on and on about his collections or something. I normally don’t mind too much, only if you get a letter like this, you need all your concentration. You can’t have people talking in your ear – especially when you’re trying to decipher writing like this. He must have been stoned out of his mind when he wrote it. It wouldn’t be unusual. Look at it. He wants me to come back. Some hopes. To him. He’s sorry, he didn’t mean to do what he did, he won’t do it again I promise, etc., etc. I seem to have heard that before. It’s not the first time, I can tell you. And there’s no excuse for it, is there? Violence. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Keep going back to that? Every time he loses his temper he … I mean, there’s no excuse. A fracture, you know. It was nearly a compound fracture. That’s what they told me. (indicating her head) Right here. You can practically see it to this day. Two X-rays. I said to him when I got home, I said, “You idiot, you know what you did to my head?” He just stands there. The way he does.“Sorry,” he says, “I’m ever so sorry.” I told him, I said, “You’re an idiot, that’s what you are. A right, uncontrolled, violent, bad-tempered idiot.” You know what he said? He says, “You call me an idiot again and I’ll smash your stupid face in”.

Confusions by Alan Ayckborn ERNEST Excuse me. Just taking refuge. Nut case over there. Bloody woman prattling on about her dog. Ought to be locked up. Thinks every man’s after her. I mean, look. Look at it. After her? She’d have to pay ‘em. You know the sort though, don’t you? If you let her talk to you long enough, she’ll talk herself into thinking you’ve assaulted her. Before you know it, she’s screaming blue murder, you’ll be carried off by the fuzz and that’s your lot. Two years if you’re lucky. I mean, I came out here to get away from the wife. Don’t want another one just like her, do I? I mean. That’s why I’m in the park. Get away from the noise. You got kids? Don’t have kids. Take my tip, don’t get married. Looks all right, but believe me – nothing’s your own. You’ve paid for it all but nothing’s your own. Yap, yap, yap. Want, want, want. Never satisfied. I mean, no word of a lie, I look at her some mornings and I think, blimey, I must have won last prize in a raffle. Mind you, I dare say she’s thinking the same. In fact, I know she is. Certainly keeps me at a distance. Hallo, dear, put your money on the table and she’s off out. Don’t see her for dust. Sunday mornings, it’s a race to see who can get out first. Loser keeps the baby. Well, this morning I made it first. Here I am in the quiet. Got away from the noise. You know something interesting? Most of our lives are noise, aren’t they? Artificial man-made noise. But you sit out here and you can listen-and-well, there’s a bit of traffic but apart from that – peace. Like my mother used to say. Shut your eyes in the country and you can hear God breathing.

Age Band: C (16 years and over)

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LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE by Nora and Delia Ephron

HEATHER:

I look gorgeous in high heels. Everyone looks gorgeous in high heels. But my feet hurt. My little toe was always crushed. I had a bunion. I was in so much pain, I couldn’t think. I had to choose- heels or think. I chose think. So I bought some chic flat shoes. I made a lot of mistakes. I bought these turquoise blue Marc Jacobs flats that the salesman talked me into because he said they had “toe cleavage”. I’d never heard of toe cleavage. Anyway, I realized that chic flat shoes are almost as uncomfortable as heels, and don’t do that amazing thing for your legs. Fortunately, at just about that time, I met an unbelievably stylish woman who was wearing Birkenstocks. When I was in High School, I was a Doc Martens girl, and Birkenstocks symbolized everything I didn’t want to be. They were incredibly uncool and the girls who wore them had big dirty toes that stuck out the ends. You absolutely could not be friends with a person who wore Birkenstocks. But this stylish woman wore her Birks with baggy cords and a Comme de Garcons sleeveless shirt. It was a revelation. The next day I went out and got a pedicure and a pair- dark brown, standard style. I realized that Birkenstocks were actually the coolest, punk-est shoes a girl could wear. They were a statement: “Look, these are my feet, we all have them. Okay?” My husband had a slightly different opinion. He hated my Birkenstocks. He said they made me look like a troll from Middle Earth. And once, when the Yankees were in the playoffs, he made me take them off before coming into the same room as the TV so I wouldn’t hex the team. After we split up, you’d think I’d have stuck with my Birkenstocks, but no. I started wearing heels again. Oh the pain, I can’t think. But I look gorgeous. I had to choose- heels or think. I chose heels.

CHARGE by Eric Kaiser

MARTHA: In the beginning, I am mean and greedy and selfish. This is symbolized by three things, A: There is a half-finished sculpture of an angel in my garage. B: There is a hungry little boy that sleeps on my doorstep every night that I call the police on. And C: I have a dying father that I haven't talked to in years. Then one day I see the error of my ways. I don't know how, I don't know. But I see it. Then: [Pause, a little smile.] The song comes on. And in the three minute duration of this song. I make all of the changes I need to in my life. They are symbolized by A: I finish the angel sculpture in my garage, and incidentally it is a masterpiece. B: I feed the little hungry boy on my porch, I bring him in the home and incidentally he becomes a senator and loves me. And finally C: I call my Father and tears stream from our eyes as we tell each other we love one another, and incidentally moments later he dies. But I tell him in time. And then moments later all is right in the world and this is symbolized by an ambient, light that my soul generates. [She is choked up.] Excuse me. Excuse me. It's just so dramatic. I do all that in the duration of a three minute song. It frustrates me so that I can't change like that. It is amazing how the people whose stories are told by movies, during the duration of one song, can switch their whole life around. I want a dramatic life like that.


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Death of A Salesman by Arthur Miller

Willy: Business is definitely business, but just listen for a minute You don’t understand this. When I was a boy-eighteen, nineteen---I was already on the road. And there was a question in my mind as to whether selling had a future for me. Because in those days I had a yearning to go to Alaska. See, there were three gold strikes in one month in Alaska, and I felt like going out. Just for the ride, you might say. Oh, yeah, my father lived many years in Alaska. He was an adventurous man. We’ve got quite a little streak of self-reliance in our family. I thought I’d go out with my older bother and try to locate him, and maybe settle in the North with the old man. And I was almost decided to go, when I met a salesman in the Parker House. His name was Dave Singleman. And he was eighty-four years old, and he’d drummed merchandise in thirty-one states. And old Dave, he’d go up to his room, y’understand, put on his green velvet slippers---I’ll never forget---and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living. And when I say that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. ‘Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eight-four, into twenty of thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so may different people? Do you know? When he died--- and by the way he died the death of a salesman, in his green velvet slippers in the smoker of the New York, New Haven and Hartford, going into Boston---when he died, Hundreds of salesman and buyers were at his funeral. Things were sad on a lotta trains for months after that. See In those days there was personality in it, Howard. There was respect, and comradeship, and gratitude in it. Today, it’s all cut and dried and there’s no chance for bringing friendship to bear---or personality. You see what I mean? They don’t know me any more!

A Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Blanche: I, I, I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, Mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! So big with it, couldn't be put in a coffin! But had to be burned like rubbish! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths- not always. Sometimes their breathing is hoarse, and sometimes it rattles, and sometimes they even cry out to you, "Don't let me go!" Even the old, sometimes, say, "Don't let me go." As if you were able to stop them! But funerals are quiet, with pretty flowers. And, oh, what gorgeous boxes they pack them away in! Unless you were there at the bed when they cried out, "Hold me!" you'd never suspect there was a struggle for breath and bleeding. You didn't dream, but I saw! Saw! Saw! And now you sit here telling me with your eyes that I let the place go! How in hell do you think all that sickness and dying was paid for? Death is expensive, Miss Stella! And old Cousin Jessie's right after Margaret's, hers! Why, the Grim Reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep! ? Stella. Belle Reve was his headquarters! Which of them left us a fortune? Which of them left a cent of insurance even? Only poor Jessie- one hundred to pay for her coffin. That was all, Stella! And I with my pitiful salary at the school. Yes, accuse me! Sit there and stare at me, thinking I let the place go! I let the place go? Where were you! In bed with your- Polack!


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Two by Jim Cartwright

Mrs Iger: I love big men. Big quiet strong men. That's all I want. I love to tend to them. I like to have grace and flurry around them. I like their temple arms and pillar legs and synagogue chests and big mouth and teeth and tongue like an elephant's ear. And big carved faces like a natural cliff side, and the Roman empire bone work. And you can really dig deep into 'em, can't you? And there's so much. Gargantuan man, like a Roman Empire, with a voice he hardly uses, but when he does it's all rumbling under breast plate. So big, big everything. Like sleeping by a mountain side. Carved men. It's a thrill if you see them run, say for a bus, pounding up the pavement. Good big man, thick blood through tubular veins, squirting and washing him out. It must be like a bloody big red cavernous car wash in there, in him, and all his organs and bits hanging from the rib roof, getting a good daily drenching in the good red blood. They are so bloody big you think they'll never die, and that's another reason you want them. Bloody ox men, Hercules, Thor, Chuck Connors. Come on, bring your heads down and take from my 'ickle hand. Let me groom and coddle you. And herd you. Yes, let me gather all ye big men of our Isles and herd you up and lead you across America. You myth men. Myth men. Big men. Love ya.

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Adapted by Simon Stephens from Novel by Mark Haddon

Ed: How are you feeling? Can I get you anything?

Look maybe I shouldn't say this, but....I want you to know that you can trust me....you have to know that I am going to tell you the truth from now on. About everything. Because...if you don't tell the truth now, then later on it hurts even more. So.....I killed Wellington, Christopher. Just....let me explain. When your mum left....Eileen....Mrs Shears....she was very good to me. She helped me through a very difficult time. Well, you know how she was round here most days. I thought...Well,...Christopher, I'm trying to keep this simple.....I thought she might carry on coming over....I thought.....and maybe I was being stupid.....I thought she might ….eventually....want to move in here. Or that we might move into her house. I thought we were friends. And I guess I thought wrong. We argued Christopher, and ...She said some things I'm not going to say to you because they're not nice....I think she cared more for that bloody dog than for us. And maybe that's not so stupid looking back. Maybe it's easier to living on your own looking after some stupid mutt, than sharing your life with other actual human beings. I mean, buddy we're not exactly low maintenance, are we? Anyway, we had this row. And after this particularly nasty little blow-out, she chucked me out of the house. And you know what that bloody dog was like. Nice as pie one moment, roll over , tickle its stomach. Sink its teeth into your leg the next. Anyway, we're yelling at each other and it's in the garden. So when she slams the door behind me the bugger's waiting for me. And....I know, I know. Maybe if I'd just given it a kick it would probably have backed off. But, damn Christopher, when the red mist comes down....Christ, you know what I'm talking about. I mean we're not that different me and you. And it was like everything I'd been bottling up for two years just......

I never meant for it to turn out like this.


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Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth

JOHNNY: It's all right, boy. Don't be scared. Here. Sit down. On that. There. Now, there's something I'm gonna tell you. Your mum won't like this, so listen hard, because I'm only tellin' it once. (wipes his nose and shows Marky) See that. That's blood. And not just any blood. That's Byron blood. Now, listen to me, now, and listen good, because this is important. I used to jump. Across Wiltshire, south-west. All over. One day here, ten thousand people showed up. In Stroyer's Field, half a mile from here, they lined up thirteen double decker buses. Fair Day like today. But wet. Raining. The ground was soft as butter. Stroyer's Field slopes left to right and it's rutted. On the day, the wind was blowing straight down the field. And I raced down ramp. And I took off. I hit that last bus so hard my boots came off. That's what they want to see. They want to see you shatter some bones. Swallow all your top teeth. Tongue. And when they get you out after an hour and four heart attacks, they want to see the ambulance get stuck in the mud halfway across the field. When I got to the hospital they found something out. I've got rare blood. Rarest there is. Romany blood. All Byrons have got it. I've got it and you've got it too. Listen to me now. This blood, it's valuable. To doctors. Hospitals. Every six weeks, I go up Swindon General, and I give 'em a pint of my blood. And they give me six hundred pound. They need it, see, and I'm the only one they know's got it. And when I sit in that waiting room, waiting to go in, they treat me like a king. I can sit there, with the other patients all around, and I can smoke, have a can, right there in front of the nurses. And they can't touch me. They need me. See. They need me. So don't ever worry, because anywhere you go. If you're ever short. Back to the wall. Remember the blood. The blood.

List B (one selection from each list) Marriage by Nikoli Gogol

Agafya: Honestly, this choosing business is so difficult. If there were just one or two, but four! Take your pick. Mr Anuchkin isn’t bad-looking, but he’s a bit skinny, of course. And Mr Podkolyosin isn’t too bad, either. And truth to tell, though he’s rather stout, Mr Omelet’s still a fine figure of a man. So what am I to do, if you please? Mr Zhevakin’s also a man of distinction. It really is difficult to decide, you can’t begin to describe it. Now, if you could attach Mr Anuchkin’s lips to Mr Podkolyosin’s nose, and take some of Mr Zhevakin’s easy manner, and perhaps add Mr Omelet’s solid build, I could decide on the spot. But now I’ve got to rack my brains! And it’s giving me a fearsome headache. I think it’d be best to draw lots. Turn the whole matter over to God’s will, and whichever one comes out, that’ll be my husband. I’ll write all their names on a bit of paper, roll them up tight, then so be it. (She goes to her desk, gets some paper and writes the names on them.) Life’s so trying for a girl, especially when she’s in love. It’s something no man will ever understand, and anyway they just don’t want to. Now, that’s them ready! All that remains is to put them in my purse, shut my eyes, and that’s it – what will be, will be. (She places papers in her purse and give it a shake.) This is dreadful… oh God, please make it Anuchkin! No, why him? Better Mr Podkolyosin. But why Mr Podkolyosin? In what way are the others worse? No, no, I won’t… whichever comes out, so be it. (She rummages in her purse and pulls them all out instead of one.) Oh! All of them! They’ve all come out! And my heart’s pounding. No, no, it’s got to be one! (She puts the papers back in her purse.) Oh, if only I could draw out Baltazar… no, what am I saying? I mean Mr Anuchkin…no, I won’t, I won’t. Let fate decide.


13


AN IDEAL HUSBAND By Oscar Wilde

MABEL:

Well, Tommy has proposed to me again. Tommy really does nothing but propose to me. He proposed to me last night in the music room, when I was quite unprotected, as there was an elaborate trio going on. I didn’t dare to make the smallest repartee, I need hardly tell you. If I had, it would have stopped the music at once. Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be perfectly deaf. Then he proposed to me in broad daylight this morning, in front of that dreadful statue of Achilles. Really, the things that go on in front of that work of art are quite appalling. The police should interfere. At luncheon I saw by the glare in his eye that he was going to propose again, and I just managed to check him in tome by assuring him that I was a bimetallist. Fortunately, I don’t know what bimetallism means. And I don’t believe anybody else does either. But the observation crushed Tommy for ten minutes. He looked quite shocked. And then Tommy is so annoying in the way he proposes. If he proposed at the top of his voice, I should no mind so much. That might produce some effect on the public. But he does it in a horrid confidential way. When Tommy wants to be romantic he talks to one just like a doctor. I am very fond of Tommy, but his methods of proposing are quite out of date. I wish, Gertrude, you would speak to him, and tell him that once a week is quite often enough to propose to anyone, and that it should always be done in a manner that attracts some attention.

THE CASKET COMEDY by Titus Maccius Plautus

ALCESIMARCHUS: I do believe it was Love that first devised the torturer's profession here on earth. It's my own experience--no need to look further--that makes me think so, for in torment of soul no man rivals me, comes near me. I'm tossed around, bandied about, goaded, whirled on the wheel of love, done to death, poor wretch that I am! I'm torn, torn asunder, disrupted, dismembered--yes, all my mental faculties are befogged! Where I am, there I am not; where I am not, there my soul is--yes, I am in a thousand moods! The thing that pleases me ceases to please a moment later; yes, Love mocks me in my weariness of soul--it drives me off, hounds me, seeks me, lays hands on me, holds me back, lures, lavishes! It gives without giving! beguiles me! It leads me on, then warns me off; it warns me off, then tempts me on. It deals with me like the waves of the sea--yes, batters my loving heart to bits; and except that I do not go to the bottom, poor devil, my wreck's complete in every kind of wretchedness! Yes, my father has kept me at the villa on the farm the last six successive days and I was not allowed to come and see my darling during all that time! Isn't it a terrible thing to tell of?

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14


Fear and Misery in the Third Reich by Berthold Brecht

The Jewish Wife: Yes, I’m packing. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed anything the last few days. Nothing really matters, Fritz, except just one thing: if we spend our last hour together without looking at each other’s eyes. That’s a triumph they can’t be allowed, the liars who force everyone else to lie. Ten years ago when somebody said no one would think I was Jewish, you instantly said yes, they would. And that’s fine. That was straightforward. Why take things in a roundabout way now? I’m packing so they shan’t take away your job as senior physician. And because they’ve stopped saying good morning to you at the clinic, and because you’re not sleeping nowadays. I don’t want you to tell me I mustn’t go. And I’m hurrying because I don’t want to hear you telling me I must. It’s a matter of time. Principles are a matter of time. They don’t last for ever, any more than a glove does. (There are good ones which last a long while. But even they only have a certain life.) Don’t get the idea that I’m angry. Yes, I am. Why should I always be understanding? What’s wrong with the shape of my nose and the colour of my hair? I’m to leave the town where I was born just so they don’t have to go short of butter. What sort of people are you, yourself included? You work out a quantum theory and the Trendelenburg test, then allow a lot of semi-barbarians to tell you you’re to conquer the world but you can’t have the woman you want. The artificial lung, and the dive-bomber! You are monsters or you pander to monsters. Yes, I know I’m being unreasonable, but what good is reason in a world like this? There you sit watching your wife pack and saying nothing.

Hamlet

Act III, Sc I

HAMLET To be, or not to be? That is the question—

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep— No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveler returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.—Soft you now, The fair Ophelia!—Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered.


15


AS YOU LIKE IT

by William Shakespeare

JAQUES: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like a snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

The Winter's Tale (Act 3 Scene 2)

Hermione: Sir, spare your threats: The bug which you would fright me with, I seek. To me can life be no commodity; The crown and comfort of my life, your favour, I do give lost, for I do feel it gone, But know not how it went. My second joy, And first-fruits of my body, from his presence I am barred, like one infectious. My third comfort, Starred most unluckily, is from my breast – The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth – Haled out to murder. Myself on every post Proclaimed a strumpet; with immodest hatred The childbed privilege denied, which ‘longs To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried Here to this place, i’th’ open air, before I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege, Tell me what blessings I have here alive That I should fear to die. Therefore proceed. But yet hear this – mistake me not: no life, I prize it not a straw; but for mine honour, Which I would free – if I shall be condemned Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else But what your jealousies awake, I tell you ‘Tis rigour and not law. Your honours all, I do refer me to the Oracle: Apollo be my judge!


Competition pieces for the acting performance class · Dogface: This is how it happens: One minute,...

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Transcript of Competition pieces for the acting performance class · Dogface: This is how it happens: One minute,...